by Lita Cosner

“So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them” (Genesis 1:27, KJV). This is probably one of the most well-known passages of Scripture in the Old Testament, and much of our understanding of who we are as human beings, and how we relate to God, is based on how we understand this verse.

What is the image of God?

Man alone, both male and female, is created in the image of God, and this is the basis for our special relationship with him which is different than that of animals, who do not have eternal spirits; and angels, who are not offered salvation if they sin (Hebrews 2:16). But what exactly does it mean when the Bible says we’re created in the image and likeness of God?

Theology professor Wayne Grudem writes:

“When God says, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness’ (Gen 1:26), the meaning is that God plans to make a creature similar to himself. Both the Hebrew word for ‘image’ (tselem) and the Hebrew word for ‘likeness’ (demût) refer to something that is similar but not identical to the thing it represents or is an ‘image’ of. The word image can also be used of something that represents something else.”1
Adam and Eve’s sin had disastrous consequences for them, for all their descendants, and the whole universe.
Or to say it another way, God created mankind to be like Him in certain ways and to represent Him. In the New Testament believers’ bodies are called temples for the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19). While some try to find a specific characteristic that primarily reflects the image of God, such as language, intellectual capacity, etc, it seems best not to limit the image of God to a certain few characteristics, since the Bible never does so.

Rather, unfallen man reflected the image of God in that He was endowed with all the communicable attributes of God, such as the capacity for discernment, wisdom, love, holiness etc. Of course, there are attributes of God such as His omnipresence, self-sufficiency, omnipotence, etc, that He could not give to a creature because they are uniquely part of God’s nature. And the attributes He does give to us work differently for us than they do for Him. For instance, we have eternal spirits, and God is eternal. But God is eternal in that He always existed and always will, while we are eternal in that our spirits exist forever after they come into being.

Continue reading: Broken images